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The Associated Press reported on the 9th that former President Donald Trump, who was found guilty in connection with paying ‘hush money for sexual misconduct’ and is about to be sentenced (July 11), will have an online meeting with New York State probation officers on the 10th.

Former President Trump will not appear in court and will use a video conferencing system to answer questions from probation officers. Usually, a lawyer is not present during this procedure, but the AP introduced that Judge Juan Mercan of the Manhattan District Court in charge of this case decided to allow former President Trump’s lawyer to participate.

The probation officer interview is a procedure to prepare and deliver a report containing information related to the defendant to the judge ahead of sentencing. Typically, the report includes the defendant’s personal history, criminal history, employment situation, family support obligations, the probation officer’s opinion regarding sentencing, and the defendant’s reasons for needing leniency.

The judge may refer to the report, when necessary, when deciding the sentence.

Previously, the jury in the criminal trial in the case of former President Trump’s alleged payment of hush money related to a sexual scandal found former President Trump guilty on all 34 charges filed on the 30th of last month.

As the jury, which has the power to determine guilt or innocence, decided on guilt, Judge Merchan, the judge in charge of the trial, decided to hand down the sentence on July 11.

A Lubbock University opinion poll released on the 29th showed that the approval ratings of Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump were tied in Virginia.

This is considered a dramatic reversal compared to the 2020 presidential election, when the Democratic Party won by a 10-percentage point margin. In the match between Biden and Trump, they were tied at 42% each, and when other candidates were included, President Biden was ahead by 2 percentage points with 40% for Biden and 38% for Trump.

However, it is analysed that it is virtually a tie as it does not even fall within the margin of error (4.24%). This opinion poll is good news for former President Trump as the sexual harassment trial is ongoing and compared to the poll conducted at the beginning of the year, it recorded the best score.

A Lubbock University poll released just before Super Tuesday recorded 47% for Biden and 43% for Trump, and it was a time when Republican candidate Nikki Haley strongly attacked former President Trump. Meanwhile, in the 2020 presidential election, there was a large gap in vote percentage, with Biden at 54% and Trump at 44%.

In this survey, only 2% said they could not decide which candidate to support, and 14% said they would vote for a third candidate other than the Democratic or Republican party. When other candidates are included, the number of voters who would vote for a third candidate increased to 20%.

Third-place candidates include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (8%), Jill Stein (3%), and Cornel West (1%). Meanwhile, in the question evaluating government ability, 44% said the Trump era was good and 33% said it was bad, while 25% said the Biden era was good and 47% said it was bad. This is a warning sign to President Biden ahead of the presidential election, and while 87% of Republicans support Trump, only 50% of Democrats support Biden.

The poll was conducted May 12-21 among 711 Virginia voters. Virginia, which has considered ‘checks and balances’ important, was classified as a ‘swing state’ that is not biased to one side but has maintained its blue (Democratic Party) colour ever since the election of Democratic President Barack Obama in 2008.

Then, with the election of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in 2021, it turned red (Republican), but is struggling as it lost the state legislature to the Democratic Party in the last Virginia general election. And this year, the competition between blue and red to take over Virginia is fierce again.

It has been reported that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who have been engaged in a war of nerves, even sparking the ‘hyeonpi’ controversy, are now competing for collaboration with an AI chatbot company.

The British daily Financial Times (FT) reported on the 25th that Meta, the parent company of Facebook run by Zuckerberg, and xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup, are competing for collaboration with ‘Character.AI’. local time) reported. Character.

AI is a company founded in 2021 by Noam Sherzier, a former researcher at Google Brain, Google’s deep learning AI research team. It is an AI chatbot service that uses large language models (LLM) to provide conversations with various people and is gaining popularity among young Americans. It also received support from Andreessen Horowitz, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.

According to the FT, four people familiar with the matter said that Meta recently held initial discussions about a partnership with Character.AI. Multiple officials also mentioned that Character.AI had conducted similar discussions with Musk’s xAI. However, it has been reported that discussions between the companies have not yet led to an agreement.

FT pointed out that the interest in Character.AI clearly shows the recent trend in which tech companies are pursuing collaboration and investment with AI startups to develop cutting-edge technologies. In September of last year, Meta created a so-called ‘AI Persona’ chatbot that applied the personalities of celebrities and made it available on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

xAI developed its own chatbot ‘Grok’ and provided it to premium subscribers of X (formerly Twitter). It is known that discussions on collaboration with Character.AI are focused on expanding research rather than acquisition. This is because big tech companies are hesitant to attempt to acquire AI startups due to the impact of global regulatory measures.

For example, Microsoft’s (MS) and OpenAI’s $13 billion collaboration was investigated by U.S. and European competition authorities over whether it was a merger or acquisition, despite both parties’ denials. In addition to Character.

AI, Meta is known to have discussed strategic partnerships with Open AI and Adept, a startup created by Google AI developers. Regarding the FT report, Character.AI and Meta declined to comment, and Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reiterated his position against Israel on the 19th (local time) against a large-scale attack on Rafah, Gaza Strip. The White House reported in a press release that Sullivan met with Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and held a Strategic Consultative Group (SCG) meeting with Israel.

At the SCG, Advisor Sullivan discussed with Israel ways to defeat Hamas while minimizing civilian casualties and reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s long-standing position on Rafah. He also reaffirmed the need for Israel to link its military operations with political strategy. Previously, President Biden has repeatedly expressed his opposition to a large-scale military attack on Rafah, where 1 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Sullivan also proposed a series of concrete steps for Israel to send more aid to Gaza through all possible channels, the White House said. He also discussed measures to establish mechanisms to ensure the safety of Gaza activists and fixed channels for humanitarian assistance in Gaza, respectively. Previously, Aide Sullivan met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi de facto leader, in Saudi Arabia the day before and discussed the issue of concluding a mutual defence treaty.

The Saudi state-run SPA news agency reported the previous day that the two sides discussed the ‘just before finalization’ stage of the draft defence treaty. The White House said that Sullivan briefed Prime Minister Netanyahu and others on the “potential that could be helpful not only to Israel but also to the Palestinian people.” In this regard, CBS reported, citing sources, that the United States and Saudi Arabia are expected to complete the agreement within a few days.

The United States is pursuing the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of the Middle East peace plan, including the Palestinian issue, and Saudi Arabia has requested that the United States sign a defence treaty as a condition for normalizing relations.

President Joe Biden, who is running for re-election in the November presidential election, criticized former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant remarks at an Asian Pacific American event on the 13th. President Biden mentioned former President Trump at an event held at the White House on this day to commemorate ‘Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month’ and said, “While we fight for comprehensive immigration system reform, he “They are calling me a rapist and a murderer,” he said. “He (former President Trump) said, ‘They are not people, and they are polluting the blood of America,’” he said. “My predecessor wanted a country for only some of us. We want an America for all of us.” emphasized.

President Biden said, “There has been a continued conflict of values and vision in the United States,” and criticized former President Trump again for pursuing “revenge and retaliation.” “We are making history together,” he said, citing the signing of a bill establishing a committee to consider establishing a National Museum of Asian and Pacific American History and Culture in 2022.

During his congratulatory address, President Biden personally called Cristeta Comerford, a Filipino American who was promoted to White House chef in 2005 under President George W. Bush, to the podium and publicly praised her. He added, “She’s amazing,” and joked, “In fact, when I first came (to the White House), I was 20 pounds (about 9 kg) lighter.”

Chinese American actress Lucy Liu attended the event. In his congratulatory address, he said his son was confident in his identity, adding, “This is surprising given the contrast with my own childhood, when I distanced myself from my heritage in order to feel a stronger sense of belonging.”

As competition in the search market heats up with the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the market share of Google, the world’s largest search engine company, fell slightly, while Microsoft (MS) rose. According to Stat Counter, a global web traffic analysis site, on the 5th, Google’s global search market share as of last April was 90.91%.

This is a drop of about 2 percentage points (1.91 percentage points) from a year ago (92.82%) and 0.47 percentage points lower than last March (91.38%), a month ago. Compared to May of last year (93.11%), which had the highest market share over the past 12 months, it fell by 2.20 percentage points. Although Google still holds more than 90% of the search market share, its dominance has decreased slightly. On the other hand, Microsoft’s search engine Bing’s market share in April was 3.64%, up nearly 1% from a year ago (2.76%).

Yahoo’s search share was 1.13%, unchanged from April last year (1.11%). In the US search market, changes in market share were more evident. Google’s market share in April this year was 86.58%, down 2.3 percentage points from a year ago (88.88%). Most of Google’s decline was absorbed by MS Bing. Microsoft’s market share rose 2 percentage points from 6.43% to 8.24% during the same period, taking one step closer to 10%. Yahoo rose slightly from 2.33% to 2.59%. Since the advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT,

MS has quickly incorporated it into its search engine, challenging the search market dominated by Google. In addition, in the ‘search antitrust lawsuit’ filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against Google, it is seeking to reorganize the market by defending the government’s claim that Google is illegally dominating the market. MS CEO Satya Nadella appeared as a witness in a trial held in October last year and expressed concern that allowing Google’s illegal monopoly in the search market could strengthen Google’s dominance in the AI market.

Reuters and CNN reported on the 26th that Republic First Bank, a local bank, was closed and sold to another bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Pennsylvania-based Fulton Bank will acquire substantially all of the deposits and assets of Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank. Previously, Pennsylvania state financial authorities closed Republic First Bank.

The FDIC took merger and acquisition actions against this bank to protect depositors. The bank faced a crisis due to management difficulties, including withdrawing from the mortgage (home loan) business early last year due to rising costs and worsening profitability.

As of the end of January, the bank’s total assets were about $6 billion, and deposits were $4 billion. Republic First Bank was the first bank to fail in the U.S. this year, raising concerns about the soundness of local banks again.

In the first half of last year, three local banks, including Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, went bankrupt, and in November of the same year, Citizens Bank of Iowa and others went bankrupt. Last month, international credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Global downgraded the rating outlook for five U.S. regional banks, including First Commonwealth Financial, from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’ due to concerns about commercial real estate (CRE) insolvency.

The Associated Press reported that in Tennessee, on Saturday the 20th, a shooting occurred in a park where a village festival was being held, killing at least two people, and injuring six others. Police in Memphis, southeastern Tennessee, said they received a report of gunfire at a park where a festival was being held at around 7:19 p.m. on this day, and that multiple casualties were found at the scene. Police said at a press conference, “Two people died instantly, and one of the injured is in critical condition.”

At the time of the incident, about 200 to 300 residents were gathering in the park and holding a festival, and prior permission from the city authorities was not obtained, the police added. It was not immediately known whether the criminal had been arrested.

There is a tense standoff between sexual minority groups, who say that the rights of transgender minors in California must be guaranteed, and parental rights, which require parents to know in advance about their children’s gender transition plans. The conflict between parents and sexual minority groups began when sexual minority minors were involved. It started with students changing their gender and changing their gender titles. The Chino School District required parents to be notified immediately when students change their gender identity on campus, but the court blocked that measure.

As the debate continues over the rights of teenagers and their parents’ right to know, surrounding the gender identity issue of teenagers. A proposal to expand the right to know of sexual minority parents is being promoted. The gist of the child protection initiative, called the ‘Protect Kids of California Act’, is that schools must notify parents if a minor student wishes to change gender.

Additionally, male-to-female male-to-female youth athletes are banned from participating in female sports games, transgender students are banned from using restrooms of the gender they are transitioned into, and students who wish to transition from gender to child are prohibited from performing physical examinations without parental consent. They are protesting against it, saying it is an invasion of students’ privacy. They pointed out that in many cases, sexual minority students want to hide the fact that they are sexual minorities even from their families, but parents’ right to know forces sexual minority students to come out.

The Korean community in Southern California is actively campaigning for signatures for a child protection bill, saying that the right to know of sexual minority parents must be protected, and the Korean missionary group TEXT is taking the lead. Sara Kim, CEO of the group Text, said that currently in California, children under the age of 18 are It is possible for adolescents to change their gender without parental consent, but it has too many side effects, and pointed out that California law needs to be changed.

In order to put a child protection initiative that guarantees parents’ right to know up for election, it is necessary to secure signatures from residents, and in a recent signature campaign, Although the response was low, many Koreans wishing to sign the child protection initiative to the election said there were many invalid votes and requested that they check the relevant information to avoid invalid votes. T

he deadline for the proposition to be included in the November election is May 5. It has been extended to the 28th of February. The Korean missionary group TEXT announced that it will continue to collect signatures at LA’s Hannam Chain and Zion Market for the next five weeks.

President Joe Biden additionally announced a plan to cancel student loan debt, one of his major pledges ahead of the November presidential election. President Biden announced a new student loan forgiveness plan in a speech on the 8th in Madison, Wisconsin, a battleground state for the presidential election, on the topic of ‘lowering the cost of living for Americans.’

According to this, those earning less than $120,000 per year ($240,000 or less for married couples combined) will have up to $20,000 of interest accumulated due to failure to repay loans on time be forgiven. In addition, through various other measures, the debt of more than 4 million people will be completely written off, and the debt of 10 million people will be reduced by at least $5,000. In addition, a plan to cancel the debt of borrowers who have repaid loans for more than 20 years (more than 25 years for graduate school) was also included in the plan announced by President Biden on this day.

The decision was made to ease the burden of student loans even in cases where a university suddenly closes, a student loses eligibility to participate in the federal student loan program, or a student is unable to repay student loans due to high other costs such as medical expenses and childcare.\

In addition, loans can be forgiven according to the already announced policy, but debts of borrowers who do not apply for this are automatically forgiven. It is estimated that the number of beneficiaries from this forgiveness plan will reach at least 23 million. Additionally, the White House explained that if beneficiaries of the forgiveness plan previously announced by the Biden administration are included, the debt burden of a total of more than 30 million borrowers can be reduced.

In his speech, President Biden diagnosed, “Too many Americans today, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree, and paying off student loans has become too burdensome for working- and middle-class people.” President Biden then pointed out that the burden of student loan repayment ultimately hinders the economy by acting as a burden on marriage, childbirth, home purchase, and starting a business.

At the same time, President Biden emphasized, “We will not stop cancelling student loan debt for hard-working Americans,” and added, “That is good for our economy.” President Biden’s student loan forgiveness is evaluated as considering the votes of young voters, such as those in their 20s and 30s who have just graduated from college and still have a lot of loans, and people of colour.

President Biden won the 2020 presidential election over former President Donald Trump based on the full support of young people and people of colour, but public opinion has shown that their support for Biden has decreased significantly compared to four years ago ahead of the rematch with Trump in November. It has been shown in the survey.

The White House said it expects this policy to greatly help blacks and Latinos, saying they tend to take out more loans and fail to repay their loans than white people. The New York Times assessed that if President Biden succeeds in implementing the new plan before the November presidential election, it could help win the support of voters who were greatly disappointed by the failure of President Biden’s first attempt to cancel student loan debt.

In August 2022, President Biden announced a policy to waive up to $20,000 of student loan debt for households with an annual income of less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). However, in June of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the president did not have the legal authority to do so, and about 4 million people received benefits until the policy was suspended. Since then, President Biden has been seeking ways to eliminate student loan debt to the extent legally permitted.

The NYT reported that only part of the new plan is expected to be implemented before the presidential election, and that the Republican Party, which has opposed student loan forgiveness, may file another lawsuit.